Epidemiological modelling with behavioural considerations and to inform policy making
Abstract
(Associated paper: Modelling the epidemiological implications for SARS-CoV-2 of Christmas household bubbles in England in December 2020. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jtbi.2022.111331)
In the second part, I will present a methodological pipeline developed to generate novel quantitative data on farmer beliefs with respect to disease management, process the data into a form amenable for use in mathematical models of livestock disease transmission and then refine said mathematical models according to the findings of the data. Such an approach is motivated by livestock disease models traditionally omitting variation in farmer disease management behaviours. I will discuss our application of this methodology for a fast, spatially spreading disease outbreak scenario amongst cattle herds in Great Britain, for which we elicited when farmers would use an available vaccine and then used the attained behavioural groups within a livestock disease model to make epidemiological and health economic assessments.
(Associated paper: Incorporating heterogeneity in farmer disease control behaviour into a livestock disease transmission model. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.prevetmed.2023.106019)